New Zealanders’ online privacy behaviours under the microscope

Age, ethnicity, income and education are significant factors in how people manage their personal information online, a Victoria University of Wellington study has found.

The findings of a major national study examining the information behaviours of Kiwis in online commercial transactions, online transactions with government and on social networking sites, are being released today.

Led by Professor Miriam Lips, Chair in e-Government, School of Government at Victoria University, and commissioned by the Department of Internal Affairs, the study is the first of its kind to be carried out in New Zealand.

One of its objectives is to identify effective solutions for managing risks around online identity information behaviours and people’s experiences with cybercrime or cyber-enabled crime.

Professor Lips says the study not only demonstrates that people from various age groups, different ethnicities, and lower income or lower educational backgrounds behave differently online compared to others, but also provides insight into what people from various backgrounds are doing online with their identity information.

For instance, the study found that although 95 percent of the population uses the internet on a regular basis and most of them at home, those people who did not go online in the last 12 months belong to lower income groups or do not have a personal income.

The study also shows that older generations engage less in a variety of online activities, including online personal banking, online government transactions, participation in online entertainment, creation of content and using a social networking site.

“Fourteen percent of young people up to 24 years of age indicated that they don’t know why they provide their personal details in online commercial transactions,” Professor Lips says. “That indicates another significant generational difference in people’s online privacy behaviours.”

The study indicated that the majority of New Zealanders have a high level of trust that New Zealand government agencies will keep their identity information safe—significantly higher than overseas data suggests—but the way individuals choose to provide information differs. For more info visit http://techday.com/netguide/news/new-zealanders-online-privacy-behaviours-under-the-microscope/181014/